Product Description
Considered by many to be the most characteristically American of our twentieth-century poets, William Carlos Williams "wanted to write a poem / that you would understand / ,,,But you got to try hard—."So that readers could more fully understand the extent of Williams' radical simplicity, all of his published poetry, excluding Paterson, was reissued in two definite volumes, of which this is the first. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

All together-- the poems are even better
I'm not going to attempt to talk about WCW's poetry or I could be writing for hours... rather this review is about the volume of "collected" poems as a book to read. Yes it includes some dubious items and some debris we would expect from any serious and innovative writer... but there are mostly successes here and well worth reading. Especially informative is observing WCW's development as a writer and thinker and his daring as a poet and his striving for new ways to express the response of an artist to the swelling tide of modernity and cultural failures of the 20th century.

Intense Words and Feelings
How can one describe William Carlos Williams, a great brilliant writer. His words are so in depth and so meaning and can relate to any particular situation one might be in. His use of language is superior above others. Not until recently did I read something of his in a collection of poems that I had borrowed, and I saw one poem that stuck out to me. This poem is called Romance Moderne. This is a truly excellent poem and led me to be such a great admirer of William Carlos Williams. I've borrowed his collection of poems almost a thousand times from the library, and I still haven't finished reading all of his poems. It takes a necessary amount of time to soak in his words, and with such a great number of poems, I'd like to soak them all in, thus I will be buying the book for myself to have.

The foundation ofWCW'sart
Whew, check out that list. This is the foundation of Williams' art, for fans of his selected & Pictures from Brughel.

This is the development of Williams' daily art, fine poems punctuated by an occasional masterpiece or near-surrealistic gemstone. Someone once asked John Cage, "With your methods, couldn't anyone compose music?" Cage replied, "Yes, but they don't." Many of Williams' poems make that impression. Where I live, in New Jersey, Williams is so ingrained in the literary landscape that no poet is more imitated, even if the imitator is unaware of the influence.Williams was better at setting examples than at explaining methods. He learned & invented as he wrote, & I suspect his talk & his letters had a great deal more influence than his occasional stabs at poetics.

Williams stripped down American poesy & reconstructed it as a form of talk, which it had been all along beneath Whitman's yawping & Dickinson's obsessive editing & Frost hiking though New England snow five steps at a time.Like all great American originals, he didn't know he was supposed to be a somebody-else; maybe a Stephen Benet, a William Vaughn Moody, an Edwin Arlington Robinson, all big literary stars in their time but not now counted in the first ranks of our poets.

This is roughly the first half of The Doc's amazin' journey. You'll know if you need it. Any intelligent poet friend will love it as a gift.

Intense
The overall strength of Williams' work lies in his power to summon image from where there was previously nothing.

Forget about the conventional tactics of poetry (meter, rhyme, etc.).Williams effectively occupies theouter regions of the land which is not prose.His power always properlylay in the simple yet vivid images (visual, aural, tactile, etc.) behindthe words.

I've a grudging respect for the man as a poet.
I don't know what it is about WCW that just makes me want to puke. Perhaps it's his nice-guy, nice "poet" pretensions.I do see thesense in those aphorisms about which he was constantly pontificating: "No ideas but in things", "For there to be a new mind, theremust be a new line" (sic).I do see the technical innovations in suchpoems as "Iris" or "The Red Wheelbarrow", how theenjambment for which he's famous serves to direct the eye and the mind tothings which you would not have noticed had these prose poems beenunchopped:"So much depends

Upon

A red wheel

Barrow,

Glazed with rain

Water

Beside the white

Chickens."

Very nice.The vivid white of the chickens and theshining-glass image of the water that "glazes" (one of WCW'sfavorite words) the wheelbarrow is imbued with immediacy and novelty: fresh experiences with commonplace things.That's great.

However, Ihave trouble with his "variable foot".(Employed, for example,in a poem called, I believe, "Mr. T" though not of A-Team fame.) The whole point of meter is to emulate the measure-bars in music:aconstant beat to which the tune may be set.However, the triadic linesporting his variable feet, ostensibly to account for the "rapidity ofAmerican speech", just doesn't work.The only way for it to work isif you were reading Mr. T, or if the speaker gave infinitesimally shorterpauses between the triad-fragments so that the listener can detect thedifference between a line-break and a pause separating the feet.WCWfocused so much on the visual aspect of his poems that it makes you wonder,as a formalist friend of mine once put it, why he bothered to read hispoems at all:why didn't WCW just give slideshows? On top of that, WCW hadthe gall to assault formalist poetry:I quote to the best of myrecollection:"The sonnet is the form of the tyrant" and"You cannot write a sonnet without making gestures of loyalty to thecourt of Elizabeth I." In response to some of the garbage beingspouted by WCW, both on the page and otherwise, Dylan Thomas once referredto WCW as one of the modern poets who was responsible for the Death of theEar.And, hearing about all his arty posturings, I imagine how WCW wouldstand up to the likes of Kingsley Amis, Philip Larkin, Robert Conquest,Elizabeth Jennings, and the other Movement poets, who would have lit intohim like Alex's droogs in Burgess' _A Clockwork Orange_. Too bad they nevermet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Another excellent volume from the American Poets Project
William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)

As stated in another one of my reviews, every single Library of America volume I've ever purchased (including volumes from the American Poets Project) have been of the highest quality, superbly executed and just plain beautiful.

Already possessing several volumes of William Carlos Williams work, I purchased this compact, delightful volume as a gift for my oldest son (who shares my appreciation for both great literature generally, and poetry specifically). Upon its arrival (delayed, once again, by amazon's ridiculously slow delivery) I was more than pleased, and felt proud to be presenting my son with such a first rate representation of W.C.W.'s work.

excellent purchase
This was an excellent purchase!!! The book came in good time, and it is an excellent book. I would recommend it for others interested in poetry!!!

So much depends
So much depends on this selection of WCW's work... it seems to me better than the other selection in my possession, the Penguin edition from the 80s. This one is beautifully designed and sized. I'm not familiar enough with the entire opus to really know whether this selection is definitive; certainly none of my favourites are absent. Small quibbles: something about the type makes poems sharing a page look like uneasy bedfellows but I don't know if this is avoidable. Also the glue inside the front flypaper is visible and I'm not sure will stand the test of time as well as the poems have. Overall though, a very pleasing volume.

An Excellent Beginning
If you haven't read Williams and need a place to start, this is a great beginning. Pinsky has a keen eye for Williams, and selects the freshest and most involving poems. Glancing through the reviews for all of the Poets Project books, I'm surprised little has been said about the book. For a small book it has a tough binding, but more importantly the print is easy to read--making it enjoyable to thumb (I find it difficult to read more than a handful of good poems without a break).

Electrifying
First of all, I'm shocked that I am the first person to review this book, which was released a few months ago.I'm no poetry "expert," though I do know what I like, and I like this guy.But where is everybody?I thought this volume, as well as others in the American Poets Project, would have received more attention.Especially William Carlos Williams, a voice like no other, intoxicating in a way that Whitman is, but a more modern voice, more syncopated.And there is the same love of the world around him, mostly simple, sometimes broken things.No doubt, he is one of the main voices of the 20th century and he well deserves his place in the pantheon.

If you have never read W.C. Williams, this is a great place to start.If you have, this volume is a beautifully presented distillation of his work and will be sure to offer some new revelations. ... Read more

Product Description
Long recognized as a masterpiece of modern American poetry, WIlliam Carlos Williams' Paterson is one man's testament and vision, "a humanist manifesto enacted in five books, a grammar to help us life" (Denis Donoghue).Paterson is both a place—the New Jersey city in whom the person (the poet's own life) and the public (the history of the region) are combined. Originally four books (published individually between 1946 and 1951), the structure of Paterson (in Dr. Williams' words) "follows the course of teh Passaic River" from above the great falls to its entrance into the sea. The unexpected Book Five, published in 1958, affirms the triumphant life of the imagination, in spite of age and death. This revised edition has been meticulously re-edited by Christopher MacGowan, who has supplied a wealth of notes and explanatory material. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

William Carlos Williams' EPIC long poem
Williams' "Paterson" is the long poem that brought William Carlos Williams into the American Poetic spotlight.This work illustrated Williams' ability to become a true myth-maker, and placed him in the same circle of poets that Pound, Eliot, and Whitman belonged to. I strongly recommend any poetry lover, or student of American literature, to read this text! It is amazing to see how Williams uses historical figures of local American communities, and letters from other poets to develop tone, satire, and epic scope, all while using the "Common language" of the "American idiom."A number 1 in American poetic history and development!

He stole it from me... every word.
Yeah. It's a damn fine book. Poetry or prose? who cares? Its the story of a man through the story of a town, a little rhythm, a little newspaper clipping, definately Modernist and definately good. I'm awful glad that WCW never turned into an Imagiste or a TV wrestling show. Let me put it this way, if you like: Faulkner, early Joyce, or the less obscure of Uncle Ez's poems, I think you'd find this piece of literature worth your while. If you want an all-American history story, ...sorry, I don't even know what else to suggest.
Be prepared for inconsistancy and the requirement that YOU pick up the pieces and put them together; and they're fairly easy to recognize, to boot.

It's a good poem, and I wish I would of thought of it first, but I thought of it last, and that is that.

One of my favorite books of any kind.
Paterson is a book-length poem that tells you everything you need to know about America.If it appears complex and impenetrable then you need to put the thing down for a day or two, and then try again, because this is really a joy, there's nothing impenetrable about it!Read it when you really have some time to think and skip the commentary (by this I mean read it first without consulting literary criticism, I do not mean that you should ignore any part of the work itself).This poet will teach you that literary forms are just tools and that what really matters is whether the writer has insight and is able to communicate it in the necessary way.This book is worth your precious time.

Probably not worth the effort
Even for a fan of WCW like myself, this is a tough one to read. Williams is still Williams, but not the Williams of the brevity of "This is just to say".Only die-hard fans should probably attempt this rambling modern epic.Excerpts of the good stuff are readily available, and I recommend them to fans of THE SELECTED POEMS. The closest thing I can compare PATERSON to, in terms of structure and method, is Ezra Pound's CANTOS: a collage of words, formidably difficult to understand, and also unfinished.

Many reviewers here objected to the prose passages, which contain letters or stories of historical interest about Paterson and its environs.I found the prose the most interesting part-- probably because it was in plain English.The notes in the back of this latest edition are invaluable in making sense of the sources of the prose and other references.

I've re-read PATERSON and also read some scholarly books on it since I last reviewed it and I still haven't changed my opinion.Late Williams is just too avant-garde for my tastes, dabbling as he did in "field theory" with Charles Olson and the 'tri-verse stanza' -- informal formal verse.The structure of PATERSON is not narrative, no matter how much Williams said otherwise.

Williams says that Paterson is both "a city and a man."Paterson is just a book, one with some good parts and some intentionally baffling parts.I'm sorry to report that I did not enjoy it as much as I had hoped.

A Signature Work.
Williams's Paterson is a long poem. Williams originally intended the poem to be published In five separate books which it was between 1946 and 1958. The poem has been made availabe in one complete volume. In the poem Dr Williams compares his life to the flowing course of the Passaic River; especially its waterfalls. The poem is quite lengthly but well worth the read. I think that the poem Paterson is Williams's signature work. I also recommend Williams's Selected Essays & Selected Poems. ... Read more

Product Description
Men with picked voices chant the names of cities in a huge gallery: promises that pull through descending stairways to a deep rumbling. ... Read more

Product Description
A new edition of William Carlos Williams’ loving and groundbreaking book about American history, with a new introduction by Rick Moody.Although admired by D. H. Lawrence, this modern classic went generally unnoticed during the years after its publication in 1925. Yet it is “a fundamental book, essential if one proposes to come to terms with American literature” (Times Literary Supplement). William Carlos Williams was not a historian, but he was fascinated by the texture of American history. Beginning with Columbus’s discovery of the Indies and moving on through Sir Walter Raleigh, Cotton Mather, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Aaron Burr, Edgar Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln, Williams found in the fabric of familiar episodes new shades of meaning and configurations of character. He brought a poetic imagination to the task of reconstructing a live tradition for Americans, and what results is one of the finest works of prose to have been penned by any writer of the twentieth century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Poetic History
Published in 1925, this book of historical essays can be uneven both in method and interest but is, at its best, brilliant, and, even where it fails, mostly of interest.The subject matter stretches from Eric the Red to Abraham Lincoln, and from one page (Lincoln) to a lengthy set of essays on Puritanism.The strength of the book is the evocative writing and Williams' ability to bring a new way of looking at subjects that have received extensive treatment in the past.

His approach seems particularly suited to personalities at the margin of American development:Hernando de Soto, Cotton Mather, Pere Sebastion Rables and Aaron Burr.I would approach this more as a book of essays than a history.Slow your reading pace to savor Williams' rhythm.Allow him to transport you to each venue as you try to judge the past through its own framework.

Williams certainly has a point of view about American character which he develops through these selected profiles.But he does not hide his bias so it remains up to the reader whether to agree or to take issue.

Cotton Mather: Fat and Dumb?
I have just finished reading this book for the second time, once in depth in college as a history major. Now a second time for pleasure as I have retired from fifty years of teaching. America as a nation that will not read: just ask me, papers about the wrong book, "it had a (title)name that was close" I was told more than once? Every Amarican Indian should read this book as well as Dee Brown's "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" and some of "what happened" to them will be understood? In view of what is going on in Iraq today can be understood against the backdrop of in the grain, if only it could be read. There can be no bright future in America until we learn where we came and who we really are but much more, just what WE DID to each other becuase we knew no philosophy of good and only the philosophy of narrowness of the puritins'.Cotton Mather was the Rush Limbaugh of his day without the drug input. Regards, JoeSmoke

Perspective on American Culture
In the American Grain is William Carlos Williams's outstanding andinteresting perspecitive on the formation of American culture and ideals.Set as fictional and nonfictional stories of historical figures and theirplace in creating what Williams' calls the American Idiom.

Williamsprovides the reader with some of the most interesting and provocativewritting in the 20th century. He has supplied the piece with dramatic andextreme views on the state of American Art, Culture, and History like fewbefore or since. An authoritative text for anyone seeking a realistic viewof American Society. ... Read more

Product Description
Not only for students and doctors, this volume contains Williams's thirteen "doctor stories," several of his most famous poems on medical matters, and "The Practice" from The Autobiography.These writings, together with Dr. Robert Coles's enthusiastic appraisal of teaching Williams and Dr. William Eric Williams's personal and touching filial account, "My Father, the Doctor," make up an intriguing and timely study of the poet as a physician of rare humanity and self-knowledge. As Coles suggests, Dr. Williams's writing can help many others take a knowing look at the medical profession. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Perusing Williams' Mind
I feel like I've been able to peruse William Carlos Williams' mind after having read this book because he is so honest with his thoughts and feelings.Nothing, it seems, is held back and that is what I first fell in love with in his writing when I first studied his poetry in college.The raw truth is exposed over and over in this collection and I just kept wanting more.If you crave truth and honesty, this is the book for you.The poetry of Williams' thoughts, his observations of the mundane, show how poetry is in everday life, not in the fantastic, the fancy, the glitterati.Poetry is in the plodding, the hardscrabble, the undaunted...all of us.

A window to another era
I have just finished rereading this book for the first time in over a decade and it has enticed me into ordering a slim book of the poetry of William Carlos Williams.I am not, in general, a great lover of poetry, but he does such an excellent job conveying the exact details of a time and a place, of another era of medicine.Being a doctor myself helps to understand some of the situations, but he writes so specifically that anyone can see what he's trying to say.I like his use of exact, conversational quotes, and his unromantic, but generous view of his, often unhelpful, patients.

Insightful
This is an interesting series of short stories by the great American poet, William Carlos Williams.Williams was actually Dr. Williams and practiced pediatrics for many years.These stories are built around a series of clinical vignettes from medical practice in the early part of the century.While these stories are not great literature, they are very good andWilliams is very good at descriptions of clinical phenomena.Some of the clinical entities at the center of the stories are now rarely seen.These stories convey the experience of medical practice in this era very well and several stories have considerable emotional power.This book will be of interest to anyone who likes American literature but will perhaps find the most appreciative audience among physicians.

Stories from a Master Poet
This is an incredible book of short stories by Williams Carlos Williams, the noted American Poet from the thirties, forties and fifties.Like hispoems,these stories have to do with human emotions and the humancondition, but unlike the poems, they are fully developed with realisticbackgrounds and fully fleshed out details.This is because, while Williamswas writing poetry, he eeked out a living making pediatric house callsduring the depression.He records some of these in this collection.Mostof these stories have little do with the parents of his patients, parentswho were mostly immigrants and had little faith or hope.But he describesvividly his encounters with unusually fresh and bold children.Themasterpiece of this collection is a very short story called "The Useof Force."It is about a fight with a little girl who has throatinfection but who will not open her mouth for the doctor to check orculture.The struggle between this obviously beautiful little girl and thedoctor, which does come to force, is described candidly and evenshockingly, exposing his own pleasure in the struggle and his drive forsuccess at whatever cost.While totally told in the moment, it has thetimeless feel of a confession, a morality tale of the way the whole ofsociety treats women, particularly strong-willed, beautiful blonds.Otherstories give this same feeling of telling us more about ourselves as anation than this one man's keen observations of the poverty, grime and gritof depression children. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Imagine More Spring and All
If Moby Dick is such a classic, why are their no imitators? The same can be asked about these books by Williams. Spring and All (and Paterson) are landmarks of twentieth century American poetry, yet very few poets have chosen to use his blend of analytical prose and poetry. Why? The world could use it. Highly recommended.

An invitation or permission slip
Imaginations is a collection of five of WCW's early works, most of them a strange amalgam of poetry and prose. Kora in Hell is here, one of the cornerstones of American prose poetry. It is one of those books that feels like being handed an invitation or permission slip.

For me, however, Spring and All is the book's great pleasure. Spring and All contains some of WCW's best poems surrounded by wild prose that offers theories of poetry and rants and zany plans to destroy civilization "west of the Carpathian mountains (also east)". So much of this material has been extracted and made to look respectable and buttoned-up, like a child at church. It's so much more exhilarating to read all together.

I should admit that there are several books here I cannot yet decipher. I open pages at random and roll about in this great strange mind and hope to live a long time and become smarter and more patient.

I like to carry this book when I have almost no time to read or think. Somehow WCW was able to make these strange fragmentary books in the midst of doctoring and exhaustion. These are messy books, messy in a way that gives me courage, full of plans and frustration and paths leading nowhere.

Williams' poetic theories are quoted so often--and yet I found that the most fun, most liberating, part of Spring and All I'd never seen before. I immediately had a fantasy of aspiring writers being made to recite the following, like the Gettysburg Address.

"The writer of the imagination would find himself released from observing things for the purpose of writing them down later. He would be there to enjoy, to taste to enjoy the free world, not a world he carries like a bag of food, always fearful lest he drop something or someone get more than he,

A world detached from the necessity of recording it, sufficient to itself, removed from him (as it most certainly is) with which he has bitter and delicious relations and from which he is independent - moving at will from one thing to another - as he pleases, unbound - complete

and the unique proof of this is the work of the imagination not "like" anything but transfused with the same forces which transfuse the earth - at least one small part of them"

Acrobat of the imagination
William Carlos Williams' "Imaginations" collects five complete works of the great american poet. As excursions into experimental literature these five examples cannot be beat. The compelling and lucidexaminations of the working imagination by one of the best acrobats of theimagination. All originally published in small editions and finallyavailable again as they were before being hacked up into selected works andanthologies. "Spring and All" contains many of William'sbest-loved poems as they appeared with the original experimental prose thatwas in itself a manifesto of imagination. "The Descent of Winter"is poetry, fiction, criticism and personal journal all in one and isexquisitely beautiful and deeply insightful as a portrait of an unusuallygifted artist and man.

Acrobat of the imagination
William Carlos Williams' "Imaginations" collects five complete works of the great american poet. As excursions into experimental literature these five examples cannot be beat. The compelling and lucidexaminations of the working imagination by one of the best acrobats of theimagination. All originally published in small editions and finallyavailable again as they were before being hacked up into selected works andanthologies. "Spring and All" contains many of William'sbest-loved poems as they appeared with the original experimental prose thatwas in itself a manifesto of imagination. "The Descent of Winter"is poetry, fiction, criticism and personal journal all in one and isexquisitely beautiful and deeply insightful as a portrait of an unusuallygifted artist and man. ... Read more

Product Description
With the publication of this book, Charles Tomlinson's edition of Williams's Selected Poems, New Directions has introduced a gathering larger and more comprehensive than the original 1963 edition.Opening with Professor Tomlinson's superbly clear and helpful introduction this selection reflects the most up-to-date Williams scholarship. In addition to including many more pieces, Tomlinson has organized the whole in chronological order.

"It isn't what he [the poet] says that counts as a work of art," Williams maintained, "it's what he makes, with such intensity of purpose that it lives with an intrinsic movement of its own to verify its authenticity." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Pictures from Brueghel ...

Looking like an unassuming college professor or a local pharmacist in all the photos that you'll ever see, William Carlos Williams was a man who was touched by genius, brilliance and even boldness. Here was a man who was surrounded by some of the great modern writers of his day and was beset on all sides by `New Modernists' and yet still had the strength not to acquiesce or cow-tow under the weight of the ivory tower grumblers. Becoming a literary great in his off time from being a General Practitioner was probably just a hobby for him that went further than he would've imagined.

The New Modernists would struggle today to ignore someone like Williams, claiming a lack of form, meter and pacing. These people are all fools. If Bill Shakespeare were alive today he'd probably be writing haiku's with a sharpie on the bare bottoms of New York runway models at 3am - not policing writers to follow the iambic pentameter.

In this book is a set of poems titled: Pictures from Brueghel (1962). All of these are poetic reflections upon Brueghel's paintings (with the h) and are all absolutely moving and thoughtful. These are some of my favourite poetic pieces from Western literature.

I purchased this book in 2003 and have yet to remove it from my nightstand. William Carlos Williams delivers with a wry smile and a heavy shadow.

As for the Red Wheelbarrow ... it never moved me either. Literally or figuratively.

So much depends upon...
You know the red wheelbarrow poem?The bloody dumb red wheelbarrow beside those idiot white chickens?Glistening in sunlight?The wheelbarrow, not the chickens.Glistening.Though if plucked and cooked for a good two hours at 275 degrees, the chickens are bound to glisten too.

Fifteen years and many humbling events later, I can honestly say I've come around.Mr. Williams is an amazing and brilliant poet. I've even grown fond of The Red Wheelbarrow, mostly because it has remained a point of irritation and amusement.I guess it's like a little jazz riff of a poem.Williams' voice is said to be almost Cubist in language.Fractured.Yet the words recall simple things from rural life.Despite my initial dislike, The Red Wheelbarrow's a pretty good example of this.But it's his other poetry that I find really moving.I am reminded a bit of Steinbeck in his choice of images that are at times harsh and other times comforting.Just as Steinbeck was a very American author, Williams Carlos Williams is a very American poet.

Politically liberal and Unitarian, Williams practiced medicine as a pediatrician and delivered over 2,000 babies in his lifetime.It seems bizarre to think that this very busy doctor, who actually visited his patients in home (complete with leather bag), had a succesful literary career and keen and discerning interest in poetry of a modern bent.Williams wrote in the evenings after work and on the weekends.The image of the in-call doctor is so old-fashioned.A good juxtaposition with his writing style.

Great Poet.Poor Selection
(Skip to the bottom of this review if you want the quick version.)

The title of this edition is "Selected Poems."I don't know exactly what process of "selection" Tomlinson used in choosing the poems to include in this collection, but I imagine it involved something in the way of either dice or some variation of dart throwing or the close-your-eyes-and-see-where-your-finger-lands method.

Let me now say that I truly love the poetry of William Carlos Williams.While his work did not really become popular until the post-modern era, Williams is a strictly imagistic modernist, and in my eyes he is the epitome of modernist poetry.Like I said, his strict adherence to literal _things_ and images, combined with his genius use of the line (unmatched to this day), and a beauty that resonates far beyond the page makes for one of the greatest poetry collections of the twentieth century.

My problem, as I said, is not with Williams (far from it), but with this collection (I can no longer bring myself to call it a selection).This collection, while obviously containing "The Red Wheelbarrow," has excluded some of Williams's crucial poems.The following poems have been ommitted from this collection: "The Young Housewife," "Queen-Anne's-Lace," "Portrait of a Lady, "Willow Poem," "The Dead Baby," and "Lear."While the poetry in this edition is certainly great, simply because it is taken from the portfolio of William Carlos Williams, these poems are critical to any reader of Williams's poetry, and, for some reason, have been left out, overlooked, or forgotten, I am not sure.I would suggest that anyone who is intereste in Williams's poetry just spend the extra money and purchase the complete works (whose publisher eludes me at this time, and which I think is in two volumes).

While I have bashed Tomlinson for his choice of works to include in this collection, I will say that one good part about this book is his introduction.I provides a helpful analysis to understanding Williams if you need help with that.

If you enjoy only lofty diction and language such as that used by T.S. Eliot (whose work _The Waste Land_ Williams actually called a "catastrophe"), you may want to look into some of Williams's poetry before purchasing a collection.Williams uses direct, literal, and simple (though absolutely not simplistic) language.The beauty of it lies in the actual view of the images his poetry presents.

QUICK VERSION

Do not buy THIS collection, because it is vastly incomplete.William Carlos Williams is a great poet, and crucial works have been omitted.Purchase at least one of the volumes of his complete works instead.

Red Wheel Barrow--lots more going on than meets the eye
In my poetry class we had this big discussion about Red Wheelbarrow and how it has a lot more going for it than meets the eye. Something with the etemology of "wheelbarrow" and the way he separates it in the second stanza.

That said, the poem taken at face value is, as many of WCW's poems are, a simple, beautiful image. The stark contrast of the red wheelbarrow and white chickens on a gray rainy day instantly paints a picture in my mind. WCW had a lot of new ideas (at the time) of how poems should be written and what they should accomplish. He can write the most simple, poignant verse about a flower that on a closer examination turns out to be about atom bombs. He is a very accessible poet--even for those unitiated with this seemingly scary world--and yet offers so much for those who wish to analyze.

The Red Wheelbarrow
I really don't see how anyone can say that William Carlos Williams' "The Red Wheelbarrow" is an outstanding peice of work. I'm not going to trash the rest of his work because I find some of it to be quite good, but I would love to know how on earth that poem got published. I find it pointless and quite frankly, boring. And how people get three-page analyses of this poem leaves me in utter amazement that there actually are people with no life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"We do not believe that love can so wreck our lives."
William Carlos Williams is rightly celebrated for his shorter poems, but it is the 30-odd page poem "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" which is his masterpiece.Too many collections include only Book I of the poem, which in its entirety consists of three books and a coda and like any true work of art, can only be fully appreciated if you stand back to look at the whole.There are many beautiful lines in the first book, but without the rest of the poem to create a framework, the true beauty and significance of the poem is lost.

This poem was written at the end of Williams' life, as a long poem for his wife, asking her forgiveness for his many indiscretions during their marriage.It is one of the most honest and emotionally moving poems written in the twentieth century, and structurally reflects the full development of Williams' craft.There are several other lovely, well-written poems in this collection, including The Ivy Crown and The Reawaking, but it is the title poem which makes Williams' a premiere American poet of the past century. ... Read more

Product Description
In addition to being a small-town doctor who delivered more than 3,000 babies, William Carlos Williams was a deeply serious thinker considered on of the foremost poets of the century. In this remarkable, rich blend of art and scholarship, Paul Mariani unfolds Williams' life and times while simultaneously letting the reader inside the poet's mind and language. Photographs. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"To me especially it struck like a sardonic bullet."
I once lent my copy of Ariel (Sylvia Plath) to a poet that I knew. He defaced it by copying out "so much depends" in the front of the book. "Yes," he wrote, "to Plath, but..."

It irritated me then, and it irritates me now, looking back. As though there were a hierarchy and as though that damned red wheelbarrow meant more than anything else someone could choose to write about.

Even still, I came to really admire Williams as a poet. I had actually started to write "love Williams as a poet", but I realize that this isn't true. I admire his work much more than I love it. It seems to me that admiration would have been what he preferred.

Actually, I have to kind of figure that Williams might have preferred I have no opinion at all. I am even more certain, reading his autobiography, that he would have heartily disliked me. I certainly didn't find myself warming to him as a person.

But still. Worth reading. Well worth reading. If you're in the mood for something lighter, it is probably worth reading just for the gossip about other famous folks from the period. If you want to think hard about his ideas about Objectivism, you certainly can find food for thought here. He has a great talent for both observation and introspection. It isn't made less delightful by his apparent total lack of self-doubt.

I've read most of his poetry, but based on this I plan to pick up at least one of his novels. Recommended for anyone with an interest in poetry. Particularly recommended for anyone with an interest in American poetry. Never mind the white chickens, anyhow.

The American Literary Genius of the 20th Century
This autobiography will be recognised 100 years from now as the key to understanding the genius of Williams. He is the preeminent figure in 20th Century American Literature and will inevitably be recognized as such. ... Read more

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Sour Grapes 1921 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

You Need a Bit of Patience
Perhaps a bit of this novel's history might not be amiss. _The Case of Charles Dexter Ward_ is a 48,000 word novel that Lovecraft wrote in 1927. It is his longest work. A handwritten copy of the manuscript languished in HPL's files while he puttered around with an essay on the supernatural and a travel book on Canada (for which he was paid nothing). Several publishers had expressed an interest in a novel by Lovecraft. But he did not want to bother with the rigors of typing and revising the work. After Lovecraft's death in 1937, the manuscript was discovered in sections. It was serialized in the May and July 1941 issues of _Weird Tales_. It has since been published as a solo novel or as a part of various collections. I have read that the current version of the novel is faulty because of August Derleth's editing, but I reserve judgement on this issue.

_The Case of Charles Dexter Ward_ is one of Lovecraft's better stories, but it requires a certain amount of patience to appreciate. A supernatural horror novel by Theodore Sturgeon, Fritz Leiber, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, or Ramsey Campbell usually has a fair amount of narrative action. Characters act and react with the supernatural forces throughout the novel. Think of _The Dreaming Jewels_, _Conjure Wife_, _Something Wicked This Way Comes_, _It_, and _Hellraiser_. The Lovecraft novel doesn't have a lot of action, and it gets off to a rather slow start. Instead, it has historical accounts, letters, medical reports, diary entries, and newspaper quotations. Not exactly spicy reading on the face of it. But they provide authenticity and detail. Slowly, slowly, a little bit at a time, Lovecraft makes his horror real. When he pulls out all the stops at the end, the results are completely believable.

The story itself involves a modern young man with antiquarian tastes (much like Lovecraft himself) who becomes fascinated with an eighteenth century ancestor of his named Joseph Curwin who was suspected of black necromancy. He retreats into a laboratory, and his behavior becomes more and more bizarre. Only Dr. Willett, the family doctor, suspects that Charles Dexter Ward is not quite as insane as most people think. Blended into the mix are Ward's parent's, a frightened butler, an unwholesome portrait, some sinister servants, ghoulish goings-on in the local cemetery, attacks by wolflike creatures, books of spells, and the bodies of strange creatures washed up on the Providence Bay rocks.

Sometimes Lovecraft's sense of delicacy misfires. When he discusses a ghoulish discovery made by some truck hi-jackers, he says: "It would not be well for the national-- or even the international-- sense of decorum if the public were ever to know what was uncovered by that awestruck party" (76). We learn little more about it. But at other times, his sense of the old-fashioned can be appropriately creepy. Here is Dr. Willett observing a possessed Ward:

It was not wholesome to know so much about the way the fat sheriff's wig fell off as he leaned over at the play at Mr. Douglass's Histrionick Academy in King's Street on the eleventh of February, 1762, which fell on a Thursday; or about how the actors cut the text of Steele's "Conscious Lover" so badly that one was almost glad the Baptist-ridden legislature closed the play two weeks later. That Thomas Sabin's coach was "damned uncomfortable" old letters may well have told; but what healthy antiquarian could recall how the creaking of Epenitus Olney's new signboard (the gaudy Crown he set up after calling his tavern the Crown Coffee House) was exactly like the first few notes of the new jazz piece all the radios in Pawtuxet were playing? (83)

The action of the story is in and around Lovecraft's native Providence, Rhode Island. It is an asset. Lovecraft knows the town-- its buildings, its legends, its history. Realism of setting helps to make the fantastic elements seem credible. Yes, it is old-fashioned. But it is worth your attention. I believe that it is the best of HPL's long pieces of writing.

A Classic of Supernatural Horror
What is amazing about THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD is that what we have of it is a rough draft that was never polished or readied for publication.The history of its discovery is wonderful.One half of the MS was discovered among Lovecraft's papers, and eventually the second half was discovered.It's first publication (abridged) was in WEIRD TALES.The text we have in this convenient mass market edition is corrupt due to poor editing on the part of August Derleth.(The best paperback edition of the novel may be found in the Penguin Classics edition, THE THING ON THE DOORSTEP AND OTHER WEIRD STORIES, in which the corrected text is graced with 170 [!!!] annotations in the notes at the back of the book.That edition is available here at Amazon.)

Lovecraft has been criticized as unable to create character -- but that is pure nonsense.Each character in this novel is superbly portrayed, distinct and fascinating.We learn exactly what we need to know about each character for the novel to move toward its macabre climax.The character of Joseph Curwen is stunning, and the legend of his life before his neoteric resurrection is haunting and hypnotic.The tragedy of Charles Ward's fate, though subtly expressed, is deeply felt, as is the effect of his alteration on his unhappy parents.

The supernatural has never been dealt with in such an interesting and unique way.The suggestions concerning Yog-Sothoth and the properties with which this daemon are composed are tantalizing indeed.Most of all, the portrait of Lovecraft's beloved city of Providence is poignant and heartfelt.This is a classic of supernatural fiction, and this small book, although not the corrected text, is a handy edition to carry around in one's pocket.Michael Whelan's cover art for this series has long been a favourite of mine.High recommended!

Obscure cosmic relationships and unnameable realities behind the protective illusions of common vision
If you want really classic Lovecraft at the top of his form, then this novel is it. It is a good, tight, driven read- except for the extensive prose tour of his beloved old Providence near the beginning. Yet, even this detailed introduction helps to weave an unmatched atmosphere that draws you deeply into Lovecraft's world. This is an ode to Providence, and to those unobtrusive and unlikely heroes that would keep it safe from cosmic evil.

Lovecraft carries us from colonial days to the "modern" 1920's in this tale. We are introduced to the hidden brotherhood of dark magicians and necromancers- those to seek to wield unnatural power from beyond the grave and beyond the stars. So much concentrated occult information, or rather enticing hints of such information, is packed into the narrative. Mystery within mystery unfolds. Yet, it is rather ordinary men that are called upon to confront this inconceivable evil, even though it threatens their very sanity.

Besides being an extremely well written tale of supernatural suspense it also serves as a teaching tale. There is madness out of time and a horror from beyond the spheres that threatens to entrap and destroy the unwary. Do not call up what ye lack the power to put down. Upon this depends more than can be put into words- all civilization, all natural law, perhaps the fate of the solar system and the universe. Perhaps even more than this- all because one fool opened a door and there was no one there with the knowledge to close it...

Horror at its best
This is the type of story that you sit back and imerse yourself in the setting. With each new tid bit of information the horror of Joseph Curwen becomes clearer and clearer. The final chapter however sent chills down my spine, as Dr Willet searches through Curwen's undergroud, antedeluvian laboratory. The dank putrid odors, the slime green walls, and the horrific wailing from the darkness... the build up is phenominal, and the pay off will have you sleeping with your lights on!

Great read, you will go back to it again and again.

Lovecraft at his best
Charles Dexter Ward is a young man in Providence, RI who is fascinated by antiquities --- too fascinated, perhaps.He becomes obsessed with an ancestor, an alleged warlock named Joseph Curwen who escaped persecution in Salem over 200 years before and fled to Providence.A unusually long-lived ancestor, I might add.

If you aren't used to reading Lovecraft, or other writers of the same time period, the language and writing style might be a little tough at first, but it is well worth getting into.Lovecraft leaves a lot to the imagination of the reader --- a device that works quite well in this story.

This is one of my favorite novellas --- actually, one of my favorite stories, even.I first read when I was in high school, and I have re-read it every few years ever since.I re-read it again a couple of days ago and I still love it.This is Lovecraft at his best. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

William Carlos Williams an excellent overview
If your a fan of the great poet or unfamiliar this is an excellent work. Contains not only his poetry, but a fine selection of prose. I highly reccomend this book . ... Read more

Product Description
William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. Williams "worked harder at being a writer than he did at being a physician"; but during his long lifetime, Williams excelled at both. ... Read more

Product Description
In this picture book biography of William Carlos Williams, Bryant's engaging prose and Sweet's stunning mixed-media illustrations celebrate the amazing man who found a way to earn a living and to honor his calling to be a poet. Full color. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Great, but wrong book.
My wife meant to get me a book about Wallace Stevens, not William Carlos Williams.
So she returned it.Great service on delivery and return.

A wonderful book!
"A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams" is an incredibly engaging book.I bought it for my 10-year-old grandson, and he is impressed with it.The narrative is great, and the illustrations are some of the best I've seen.At the end of the book, there are comments from both the author and the illustrator that give the reader additional perspective on the man and poet that William Carlos Williams was.Several Williams poems are included in the book.I recommend it for any child interested in writing and/or poetry.A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams

this just to say
Mixed media collage illustrations and words, infused with poetry, tell the life story of William Carlos Williams.From baseball to school, Willie always made extra time for exploration and words.While training as a doctor, Willie met acclaimed writers and artists.As a doctor, Willie delivered babies and treated children, but he always kept writing, shaping words into poems.Inspired by Willie's poetic voice, this biographical story shares the rhythms and images of his life.Children ages 6-9 will celebrate the mix of art and words.

How can I rate a book I don't have...
Wouldn't it be just grand to place a click on the 1-Click ordering and buy "A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams," a Caldecott 2009 Honor book? After all, I obtain the Gold Medal book and the honor books every year for my small school library. It would be grand, but it won't happen.

And the book has such glowing reviews right here on the product page. Why doesn't Amazon offer it for sale? Is it out of print already? A Caldecott Honor book out of print just two months after being named an honor book? Oh yes, I see I can purchase it from independent sellers--three who know how much Caldecott followers long to have it. But I'm afraid my little library cannot afford those prices.

What a sad, sad day.

NOTE: This information was added several hours after the posting of the review. I just checked online with a competitor, who has the book in stock for $13.60. It is also available from the competitor's local book store. I don't know why Amazon does not carry this particular book. It's a mystery.

NEW NOTE: Today is Monday, Sept. 6, 2010. I just taught a brief lesson on poetry with emphasis on William Carlos Williams and decided to check on this book. To my great delight-- Amazon is now selling it. How long has this been going on and how long has my library gone without it? I think some students will also be delighted to have this book to learn more about the poet who created "The Red Wheelbarrow," that mystifying poem!!

for budding writers
I bought this for my granddaughter who loves to write, including poetry.She was very appreciative.It's seems like the perfect book for a child who is interested in using words in creative ways. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume chronicles the correspondence between William Carlos Williams, a Pullitzer Prize-winning American poet, and his publisher, James Laughlin, the founder of "New Directions". The letters discuss modernism, art, publishing, and the writer/editor relationship between the two men. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent, if flawed, selection of Williams' work.
William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Breughel and Other Poems (New Directions 1962)

Pictures from Breughel, the 1962 Pulitzer Prizewinner in poetry, is an excellent example of how far poetry has strayed from where it should be. I doubt you will find a serious scholar of twentieth-century American poetry anywhere on the planet who would dispute the influence of William Carlos Williams on almost everything that has come since, and you will probably find even less who would be willing to come right out and say there's anything in this book deserving of less than worship. But there are dissenting opinions, and mine is one of them.

When Williams was on his game, he was one of America's finest poets. Problem is, Williams wasn't always on his game. A non-trivial amount of the work in this collection-perhaps a quarter of it, all told-is that hobgoblin of all poetry magazine editors, "prose cut up into lines." There is simply nothing poetic about some of the poems therein. While I was still in college, one of my professors mentioned that Williams (in the long poem Paterson, not a part of this book) used a grocery list as a piece of a poem, and then went on to ask us whether that was actually poetry. It was obvious from the context that he was looking for a yes. I thought then, and I still think, the answer to that question is painfully obvious, and I would have gotten it wrong in that class. And we wonder why poetry today isn't read?

Don't get me wrong. There is much here of great worth, including the classic love poem "Asphodel, The Greeny Flower." It is long, and stumbles in places, but is still one of the finest examples of the long poem in twentieth-century American poetry. This is a book well worth the time and effort, but if you stumble across something in it and find yourself wondering why both author and publisher considered it a poem, rest assured you're not alone. *** ½

Only the Imagination ...
This is a very fine survey of Williams' poems written in a ten year period spanning the 50s and early 60s.At first, I found Williams' somewhat unusual forms difficult, but discovered that with a little patience (andreading the poems aloud to myself) I was able to connect and the poemsbegan to resonate. I found great wisdom and beauty.The volume concludeswith "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower,"a stunning, sweeping lovepoem (despite its peculiar title.)The poem weaves together Williams'reverence for poetry, his artistic vision, and his political philosophy allin the context of a very personal and touching love poem which builds to apowerful climax.The book's cover quotes W.H. Auden's comment that this is"one of the most beautiful love poems in the language."Iconcur.This is the poem that includes Williams affirmation of the valueof poetic consciousness in a politcal and social conext:It is difficultto get the news from poemsyet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. It also containsWilliams exilerating affirmation: Only the imagination is real!

A great book of poems by an essential poet
This collection of poems from Williams's later years is ripe with the mastery of his craft.Uneven at times, as he always was, these poems reflect his later experiments with the "variable foot" and his turn towards a more philosophic tone that came after his series of strokes in the fifties.What they also show is that Williams was at the end of his life (not unlike W.B. Yeats) once again renewing himself and even reinventing himself --like America.Truly these are great American poems. ... Read more